In 1995 renowned polymath, Dr Pietor Apocopolos deciphered some tablets he found in a hidden Incan temple high in the Andes.  He had found proof that not only did ancient astronauts visit the Earth, but have tampered with human beings.
      Considered a kook by many,  He was contacted by the mysterious Director of CHESS in late 1995.   CHESS took great interest in his findings and established him in a laboratory underneath the Black Mesa in Southern Utah. He proved he could duplicate the ancient experiments and give ordinary Earthmen the powers of the gods.
    Given convicts and military traitors to work with was upsetting to Apocalpolos but he saw that CHESS was not going to give good healthy men to something that may just cause horrible mutations so he went ahead despite his objections. 
   Ten men went into the specially prepared pods, what came out was more, or less, then human.

12 test subjects were chosen, in honor of the 12 Olympian gods.    This motley crew of reprobates and thugs yielded a semi success.   It proved that Apocolpolos was no kook.   On April 16th, 1996 the world shuddered.
    Gloria Green, a 32 year old psychotic cultist and murderer was became the Maenad.  A powerhouse who gets stronger and tougher the more her rage grows.

  Melvin Osborn, a petty thief, was transformed into the insect like Buzz.

Sarah Tripoli, Ex CHESS agent who sold secrets to Cuba, became a being of pure darkness. Her body became as dark as her heart.  She took the code name Void.  She is now imprisoned on Satellite high in Earth Orbit.  What good is walking through walls, when there is no where to go to beyond said walls?

Frank Baum, found guilty of the execution of innocents in while stationed in The Philippines, was found dead after the experiment.  That, however, is not the oddest thing that happened to him.   His body became extremely pale, his hair jet black.  His blood, when exposed to air, vaporized into a black fog.   As the autopsy began, Stein sat up, gasped, and then vanished.  He left no residue.  He simply vanished. CHESS agent Harry Craft has received typed letters from someone claiming to be Frank Baum.  He says that he sees the spirits of the dead, and they are angry with him for escaping the "impenetrable veil” They are coming to get him, and he must hide.   He signs his letters, The Wraith.
 
Valerie Duke, a lawyer for the East Coast Mafia was convicted her self for bribery and extortion.  When taken from the pod, she fell apart into sand like particles.  Dubbed Silicon Valerie by the attending technicians, she has not displayed any signs of movement or life.  She simply transformed into a pile of sand.

Captain Steven Rand suffered a mental breakdown.  He failed to save a child during a hostage negotiation and never forgave himself. Returning from Serbia he held his commanding officers at gun point until they could cleanse his soul.  Rather than face court martial, he volunteered for this project.  What went into the pod was a disturbed man looking for absolution, what came out was a laughing Horror.  The devils that plagued him claimed him.  He emerged a seven foot tall bat winged, red skinned, horned devil.  He can make you see and hear what he wishes and instill you with dread.  He was beaten by Magnum and is still imprisoned in Level 9.

Navy Seal Michael Ryan went down to search for bodies in the Bermuda Triangle.  While searching for clues as to what happened to a downed yacht, Ryan claims to have met Mother Hydra.  What came up from the depths that day was no longer sane.   Committed to the Miskatonic Asylum in Massachusetts, CHESS recruited him for the Process.   He was the most horribly transformed of the twelve.  He emerged a squid like, bat winged, poisonous being that communicated by telepathy. He managed to mentally torture his captors into driving him to Innsmouth, Massachusetts, and releasing him into the sea.    He has not been seen since.

Roland Butler, a 36 year old community activist from Chicago was arrested for embezzlement, tax fraud, and domestic abuse.  He seemed to come out unscathed, and un powered.   Tests showed that he was normal.  After a few months of observation,  he escaped during a small riot in the Black Mesa.   The Agents involved in the fight  have been reported.  Psych exams say they were overworked and over stressed.   Security Cameras lost Bulter in the middle of the fight.  No one knows how he got away.  He just vanished.

And speaking of vanishing.  Mark Stein, ex Military came out of the process wide awake. He was the only one conscious and mobile directly after the experiment.  He screamed "get away!" and poof, he was gone.  No smoke, no flash, just gone.
     He was once sighted by Lance Muldoon  the Occult City of Shamballa in 1997.  No word on whether he survived that city's destruction or not.

Karl Horst  was a 30 year old German bank robber.   He would not turn over his boss so he was to rot in jail for life.  At least that was the plan until he was offered a deal to volunteer for Apocolpolos' experiment.  His pod shattered as Horst seemed to have suddenly gained over 500lbs of pure muscle.  He could not be sedated as nothing could penetrate his skin.  He called himself Ogre and the name fit.  It was he who initially freed the original 12 as nothing could stop this dynamo.   More on that later.

Malik Jamal, one of the few "useable" of the 12 was mixed up into something beyond his control.  He was arrested for possession and intent to sell crack cocaine.  Claiming he was innocent didn't help him.  Wanting to get free so that he could find who framed him,  Jamal volunteered for this experiment.  He was transformed into a ten foot tall walking iceberg.  Codenamed Tundra,  Jamal suffered from extreme cold, and constantly sought out heat sources.  He never seemed violent. Unfortunately his mind suffered in the transformation.  He is treated now like a large, very powerful pet. 
    After the transformation,  another person was arrested, and confessed to framing Jamal.  It seems that he thought Jamal had "dissed" him and he wanted to get back at him.


And last was Mortimer Glunt.  A sadist who strangled three children and then made puppets from their corpses.  This sicko was transformed into a two headed, three legged abomination.  He gained mental powers to override another person's will and make them do as Glunt wished.  He called himself the Control Freak. It was he who took control of Ogre and staged the riots in level 9.


    Once the Control Freak mastered his abilities, he caused chaos in Level Nine.   The 10 remaining enhanced beings rioted, killed 13 CHESS agents.   It was deemed that to fight super powered beings, one needed super powered beings.    This led to Project Red Cape.


   

General Buffet was eager to create another batch of super beings.  Twenty more people were tapped to gain super powers.  See CHESS file the List.

       It was after this batch that General Buffet was outed as a high priest of the Wargod.  He was arrested and committed suicide in jail.  In his confession , he explained that he knew that the first batch would create monsters.  He said, “What good are heroes without villains? After all, the Wargod needs blood sacrifices.”

     During all this,   *Island Zero* emerged from the sea.  Located in the Sea of Japan near both Russia and Japan, this island arose at midnight April 16th, 1996.  Unknown to the world at large, this was the exact midpoint of the three day process of the first metahuman creation process.   It is assumed that the two events are linked.   The *Kodo Cult* claimed the Island as theirs, and Muldoon, Magnum and then Major Strong intercepted them and their leader Dr Hiroshe.    Unknown to CHESS,  Hiroshe was in cahoots with extraterrestrials who taught him the secret of bionics and how to create paranormals. 
     Using these secrets,  Hiroshe cloned some humans and created the three Triple Threats.   Nine people,  three groups of two males, and one female, bonded by the arms so that they constantly face each other.  These beings attack the three cities that  the Kodo Cult deemed most destructive to their dreams of restoring the glory of Feudal Japan;  Beijing, Tokyo and New York.
   CHESS assembled the first ever group public group of metahuman superheroes to halt the attack of the Triple Threat.     New York was spared any major damage.   Beacon and Pyroman were killed in this battle.  Beijing and Tokyo were not so lucky.  Not since WW2 has so many been killed in so short a time.  The destruction of those two cities was immense.    It took a full scale military assault to kill the other two Triple Threats.  The death toll was in the tens of thousands.
     With the world reeling from this attacks,   tensions mounted.   Super beings became public knowledge.  The cat was out of the bag. 
    Russia,  Japan, China and the USA each sent a fleet to investigate Island Zero.   Satellite footage showed that strange technology peppered the landscape, as well as eggs of various shapes and sizes.     A giant humanoid emerged from a cave and yawned.  The he was 12 feet tall..  The media dubbed him the *“Bad Sheppard.”*
      The UN issued  Resolution Zero which stated that no one nation could claim Island Zero as it was named, and only joint scientific expeditions could step foot on the Island.   John Marcini AKA Peacekeeper was named enforcer of this resolution.   This ticked Chess off to no end.
    Peacekeeper was deemed a renegade, and with Captain Atlas off on his trek to Mars, there was no one powerful enough to challenge him.  It was at this point that the Russian incident occurred.

  After the incident with the Control Freak,  Dr Apocopolos has been moved to a safe house.  His location is considered top secret.